business insights
I’m officially building my first Al app. No code. No hoodie-wearing co-founder. Just me, my idea, a no-code tool called Lovable.dev, and two years of quietly training an Al on everything I know about marketing, messaging, and digital products.
More to Read
fan favorite
100 Profitable Digital Product Ideas
Plus, a totally free challenge to kick you into action and get this baby launched.
The Ultimate Guide to Canva Features + How to Use Them in 2021
Canva takes the cake as one of our all-time favorite graphic design tools. Its user-friendly interface makes it the perfect go-to for small business owners (really, anyone) to create graphics for all different aspects of their business. Instead of having to use a super robust software like Adobe, Canva gives you all the best features wrapped up in one platform that’s available on desktop or the mobile app.
Even though it’s designed with the average user in mind, you face a learning curve with any tool or software. So today, we want to give you a complete walkthrough of Canva features inside the builder, plus how to use them!
Our Top 3 Must-Have Tools for Pinterest
We. Love. Pinterest. Seriously, it’s helped us tremendously increase the traffic we have to our website and blog, in turn increasing our conversion rates. However, as much as we love Pinterest, it isn’t the platform alone that gets us our results– it’s the tools that we pair it with that allow us to do wonderful things! Technically, Pinterest is really only doing half the work.
Today, we’ll be walking you through our top 3 (in no particular order) favorite, must-have tools that will up your Pinterest game and get you the results you’ve been striving for!
The Ultimate Dubsado Set Up Checklist
So, you’re ready to get started with Dubsado as your CRM, but you’re unsure where the heck to start. We love Dubsado and would back it up with our lives, but we also know that, as with any software, it can be super intimidating to think about setting it all up. That’s where we come in!
We’re going to walk you through everything you need to know about getting your Dubsado account up and running in no time. When you break it all down, it really isn’t confusing or hard, there are just a lot of steps involved that can make it seem daunting.
So, save this post to come back to as you get to know Dubsado more and want to use it to its full potential! If you want, you can open up Dubsado in another tab now and read along as you set it up, but you definitely don’t have to complete all of this in one day.
How Brand Collateral Can Make Your Business Turn Heads
Your branded marketing collateral is like the sidekick to your business. They aid you in marketing and promoting your brand across different mediums, which means they play a huge part in your overall brand strategy.
Your branded marketing collateral is what makes the first impression on people, so it’s important to make sure that each asset is planned and designed to effectively let the market know about your brand story and what you offer.
OK, so it plays such an important role, but what actually is it? Keep reading as we dive into how brand marketing collateral can make your business turn heads, plus the different types of collateral!
How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity (our 5 step guide)
Having a brand that’s authentic means being more in tune with who you are and where your passions lie, as well as the needs of your audience. Spoiler alert: It isn’t just about an amazing logo and a pretty color palette. When you pull together elements of yourself and your personality, the benefits you’ll reap are well worth the extra time and effort it takes to really dive in and build a powerful brand identity.
With all that said, here’s our 5-step guide to creating a powerful brand identity that stays closer to the things you love, the things that represent you and your business, and your personality!
Use Dubsado Subcontracts to Create and Send Proofs!
In our humble opinion, subcontracts are the underdog of Dubsado forms. Most of the love is given to proposals, questionnaires, and lead capture forms, but subcontracts can also be an amazing asset to your business! If you’re a photographer, wedding planner, brand and web designer, stationery designer, or florist, for example, it’s likely that you need to send proofs of your work for clients to approve.
What better way to do this than to have the legal backup of a subcontract? Since clients need to sign off on them, trust us when we say that this will save you a ton of headache in the future. So, if you want to learn how to create a proof from a subcontract, keep reading!
Our Ultimate Guide to Client Onboarding + Crafting an Extraordinary Client Experience
Client onboarding is the most crucial beginning phase to starting a project with a new client. It sets the tone for the working relationship and can make or break your project depending on how you handle it. If handled poorly, it can lead to your client having a bad experience with you, and it’s the client experience that determines whether or not you’ll receive positive testimonials, repeat business, and future referrals. (No pressure!)
After working with clients during both our time as separate businesses and even after we first became business partners, we know a thing or two about client onboarding and making sure the client feels comfortable and taken care of before, during, and after the project.
With that said, let’s dive into our ultimate guide to client onboarding, plus crafting an extraordinary client experience!
10 Must-Have Details to Include in Your Client Welcome Packet
We preach often (probably entirely too often) about the importance of your client experience, but it’s one of the key defining factors between a client having a good time with you, referring you to others, and leaving a positive testimonial… Or not.
Mastering the art of providing an amazing experience for your clients is crucial to your reputation as a service provider. We know this sounds super scary, but it can actually be pretty dang easy. As long as you’re able to check in often, respond quickly, and provide important information, you’re already at an advantage.
One way of stepping off on the right foot with a new client is by sending a welcome packet. You may have also heard it called a welcome guide, onboarding guide, or onboarding packet. We’ve sent a welcome packet or two– or a million– during our years in business, and now we’re here to share 10 must-have details you should include in your client welcome packet!
How to Write a Welcome Sequence that Converts Subscribers to Buyers
So you have a freebie created, your opt-in form set up, and your freebie delivery email ready to go so that you can deliver the goods when someone joins your list. But before you start telling people about it… Do you have a welcome sequence?
When someone joins your list, they’re the warmest within the first few days. That’s your window to let them get to know you more and show them what you can offer before they forget who you are or why they even subscribed in the first place. After all, first impressions matter, and this is your way to make a great virtual first impression on your audience!
We’re huge fans of welcome sequences because it means that when the time comes to sell to someone, they won’t be in the dark about who you are– they’ll already know, like, and trust you (or at least that’s the goal). So, what actually goes into a welcome sequence? Read along as we walk you through how to write a welcome sequence that converts subscribers to buyers!
What is Relationship Marketing: 5 Ways to Create Lifelong Customers
In this day and age of hot trends that dissipate just as quickly as they come, the backbone of marketing tends to be forgotten about: relationships. In every social media strategy, you’re trying to post the things that will build a better relationship with your target audience. When running paid ads, you’re picking and choosing who you want to display the ad to so that you can nurture those relationships. But when you strip away whatever conduit you try to mask it in, relationship marketing will bring so much more reward when implemented as the real, raw thing.
We’ve been able to successfully sell our services over the years mostly thanks to relationship marketing, and we can’t wait to share with you 5 ways to create lifelong customers and clients.
The Best Way to Streamline Your Client Projects as a Service Provider
Managing your client experience is one thing, but managing and streamlining your client projects is a whole other beast to tackle as a service provider. You might be wondering what the difference is, so when we talk about managing your client experience, we mean all of the communication, appointment scheduling, sending forms, proposals, contracts, getting paid, and all that jazz. (Dubsado’s our trusted CRM for that– here’s why.)
On the other hand, you also have to deal with the actual tasks that come with fulfilling a client project for both you and your team. For this, we recommend using a project management system like Asana. It’s robust enough to handle even the most complex projects, yet simple enough that if you don’t need to use all of the fancy-shmancy extras, you don’t have to.
Today we’ll be diving into the best way to streamline your client projects using Asana!
How to Fire a Client (Without Ruining Your Reputation)
As dreamy as it would be to only ever work with clients we love, we know that isn’t always the case. There are even the few that put on a good front and seem like they’ll be a really great fit, but something goes astray during the relationship. It could be an issue as simple as miscommunication, lost expectations, scope creep, etc.
No matter the root issue, it’s hard! It may even be so hard that you’ve come to a point where you’re ready to fire a client and finally part ways for good. Before you let anxiety get the best of you, keep reading as we dive into how to determine if you actually need to say goodbye, some other ways to get back on track, and– if it comes down to it– how to fire a client without ruining your reputation.
The 3 Best Scripts to Use With Existing Clients to Increase Revenue and Get More Leads
You probably hear ten new sexy strategies to increase revenue every single day. But, if we’re honest, at the end of the day there are TWO main routes you can take.
One is with brand new, cold leads that you nurture and hope that you can convert into a client. The other is to take what’s already available to you with your existing clients to generate more revenue and super warm connections (that will take a heck of a lot less time to convert.)
Why don’t service providers do this more often? From what we see time and time again, it’s because you’re scared or just don’t know how to start those conversations with your clients. Introverts thrive on avoiding as many uncomfortable conversations as possible, but they don’t have to (and shouldn’t) feel that way. Here’s why.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dubsado Proposals
Dubsado is an all-in-one CRM that allows you to do many many things right within the software. One of those things includes creating a variety of different forms, like proposals, contracts, questionnaires, and lead capture forms. Proposals are one of our favorite forms because when you send them, you have the option to make it an easy 3-step process for your clients where they can choose a package in your proposal, sign the contract, and pay the invoice all in three streamlined steps
Sending them is easy, and creating them can be even easier. Dubsado has a drag-and-drop form builder that makes building your proposal a breeze, which we’ll be diving into later. So, keep reading for our step-by-step guide to creating Dubsado proposals!
10 Tips for Networking When You Hate Networking
Networking is one of those words that can either make the social butterfly beam with excitement or the introverted feel more stressed and anxious. It’s not everyone’s favorite thing to do but if you’re a business owner it’s important to put yourself out there.
Making connections can help your business in so many ways. It enables you to meet influential people, gather info that may be beneficial to your business, and/or even just attain some biz support with like minded people.
Businesses are built around relationships. It’s truly who you know in many instances. So here are our 10 tips for networking when you hate networking.
Welcome to My Blog
Hey, I’m Abagail Pumphrey!
You know when you are so deeply passionate about something you can’t help but share it? That’s how this blog has felt for the last decade. I’ve written about my latest strategies, tech how-tos, experience with scaling and so much more. I hope you find just what you’re looking for. We’re here to help!
-
Free Challenge
-
-
Free Download